Jimbo Fisher’s A&M radio show a throwback to a more personal time

Jimbo Fisher, left, visits with Aggies fan Matthew McNairy, who drove from San Antonio to College Station to attend a recent edition of the Texas A&M coach’s weekly radio show.

Photo: Brent Zwerneman

COLLEGE STATION - Texas A&M graduate Matthew McNairy traveled 170 miles last week to stand within two feet of Aggies coach Jimbo Fisher.

“It’s great to listen to coach Fisher up close and personal,” said McNairy, who along with his mother and grandfather drove from San Antonio simply to attend Fisher’s weekly radio show at a barbecue joint. “This is my third time to listen to him, and it never gets old.”

McNairy shook Fisher’s hand during a commercial break and returned to his seat among about 150 of his fellow A&M fans, absorbing every word of the Aggies’ first-year coach.

In an age of growing separation between a college program and its fan base — the Aggies’ Bright Football Complex, like others of its ilk, is a restricted area— a weekly radio show at a college town hotspot is as old-fashioned as pecan pie on Thanksgiving. And the talkative, engaging Fisher enjoys the bites.

“I love it,” he said of what’s become antiquated communication — face-to-face conversation.

Fisher, during one of his weekly press conferences that takes half the time of his hour-long radio show, pointed to a room full of reporters rarely making eye contact as they glanced at their laptops and smartphones to post his latest insight to Twitter.

“Get me off all that junk y’all are doing right now,” he said with a laugh. “Y’all just need a recorder and a pen and paper.”

He added that if young coaches had to splice tape to review games and plays like he did as an up-and-comer 30 years ago, “they’d quit in two seconds.”

Fisher, 53, said he realizes social media isn’t going away, and he understands the need to “connect with the kids” in recruiting. But a radio show in a cozy, comfortable setting — this one is at Rudy’s Country Store and Bar-B-Q a mile from the A&M campus — is right in his wheelhouse.

“Personal interaction with people, being able to sit and have a conversation, shake a guy’s hand … I still think it’s priceless,” Fisher said. “I love seeing people. I like to talk — as you know.”

Does he ever - as much as any A&M coach since R.C. Slocum four coaches prior. Following Slocum’s exit in 2002, Dennis Franchione, Mike Sherman and Kevin Sumlin tolerated a weekly radio show during the regular season as part of their contracts, but none seemed to enjoy it as much as Fisher. Like the folksy Slocum before him, Fisher is a yarn spinner during his time on air, occasionally referencing his upbringing in rural West Virginia.

Recounted Fisher on one of his first shows at A&M, “When I was young, I talked a lot, and I still talk a lot. At the same time, my dad told me, ‘You’ve got two ears and two eyes. If you watch and listen four times as much as you talk, you’ll learn.’”

It’s that kind of homespun wisdom that show host Andrew Monaco, who this year succeeded the retired Dave South as “Voice of the Aggies,” appreciates in filling a 60-minute window.

“It’s old school,” Monaco said of the setting of a radio show. “It goes back to schools and their radio networks giving fans a chance during the week to hear from their head coach. For me, it’s just an hour of being able to learn from Jimbo. I joke that I’m taking a master’s class in football from him.”

While previous A&M coaches’ shows were broken up with a recounting of old scores from other league games, occasional guests, trivia and other small-potatoes items to kill out the required time, Fisher plops down and talks football for an hour straight with Monaco. During breaks, he signs items for fans and poses for pictures (a plainclothes security guard stands discreetly a few feet away).

“He’s very open about that,” Monaco said of Fisher’s interaction with the masses. “There was a little trepidation among fans at first about, ‘Can we approach him?’ But he’s been so approachable. He talks about embracing (the culture) and being genuine, and you see that on Wednesday nights at his show.”

Meantime, reporters who cover A&M typically gather around their radios in their respective homes — although it’s not just radios anymore, as A&M streams the Fisher show to Facebook Live — to see if the coach will drop any personnel nuggets concerning an upcoming game, like this Saturday’s regular-season finale against LSU at Kyle Field.

For instance, a couple of months ago Fisher revealed on his radio show that receiver Jhamon Ausbon had a small broken bone in his foot, sending writers scurrying to post the latest. No matter the news or tales, fans soak in Fisher’s every word while they’re soaking in barbecue and beer or soft drinks.

“Sometimes that old-school stuff,” Fisher said with a grin, “ain’t so bad.”

Brent Zwerneman is a staff writer for the Houston Chronicle covering Texas A&M athletics. He is a graduate of Oak Ridge High School and Sam Houston State University, where he played baseball.

Brent is the author of four published books about Texas A&M, three related to A&M athletics. He’s a four-time winner of APSE National Top 10 writing awards for the San Antonio Express-News, including a second-place finish for breaking the Dennis Franchione “secret newsletter” scandal in 2007.

His coverage of Texas A&M’s move to the SEC from the Big 12 also netted a third-place finish nationally in 2012. Brent met his wife, KBTX-TV news anchor Crystal Galny, in the Dixie Chicken before an A&M-Texas Tech football game in 2002, and the couple has three children: Will, Zoe and Brady.